After my experience, I'm still tripping on what people can do and get away with (will my ex and her beau get away with it?) I guess, after growing up in South Central and watching the O.J. saga, I shouldn't be but still,...just whoa.

On the other hand, O.J.'s in prison (finally) and now Amy's been exposed, so, maybe, in more cases than I know, time gets most of them? I just don't know.

It was regarded as an accident, so there is no relationship to this year's events. She was just so unfortunate to by accident be pointing the shotgun in the same direction as the space her brother occupied when she discharged it three times. What was he doing there, anyhow? Questions they seem to be avoiding.

What this surprises you? A politcally important family covers up a murder and no one gets charged? A extremely liberal family gets police to courrupt the judicial process despite their claims to social responsiblity?

Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

In looking to confirm the information about Bishop's family's politics referenced by The Drill SGT (which I haven't found, although I'm not doubting its veracity), I was finally able to answer a question I've had all day: Why do I know the name Amy Bishop?

The only question is, does he permanently adjourn to Hedonism II now, or in 2012?

It’s like a logging forest out there for congressional Democrats these days. Timber! First Chris Dodd falls, then Patches Kennedy, not to mention a whole host of lesser-known Beltway banditos. They’re all retiring due to ill health - the voters are sick of them. The question now is the same one they ask at the deli counter. Who’s next?

Consider why Delahunt might want to call it a career. First, he’s already got a state pension - $58,343.76 a year. He’s also vested for a congressional kiss in the mail, probably at least another $90,000. He turns 69 in July, so he’s still young enough to cash in on his career in, ahem, public service, as well as finding time to fact-find at those clothing-optional Jamaican beaches he so enjoys.

On the other hand . . . first of all, there’s a congressional redistricting coming up. Massachusetts may be losing a seat. Redistricting is all about carving, and it would be immensely easier if there’s a solon who is retiring and whose district no one would miss.

And if Delahunt runs, and loses, which certainly seems possible, then who better to gerrymander out of Congress in two years than the cheeky Republican who knocks him off?

Next, the Kennedy factor. If Delahunt doesn’t run, most likely the young Kennedy kid, Carrot Top, also known as Joe Roman Numeral, steps up. You can’t redistrict a Kennedy out of Congress, even now, not in Massachusetts.

But is this a good year for a Kennedy to be running anywhere? Ask Patches. To use a nautical metaphor, 2010 is looking like low tide for Democrats. Better to let the tide come back in, as it always does. If you run now and lose, Carrot Top, Camelot really is dead, forever. Better to wait your turn, kid - you know, like Uncle Teddy never did.

Moving along, the oldest congressman in the state is John Olver of Amherst, age 73. Olver is one of the few human beings at risk of contracting Dutch elm disease. His western Mass. district would be as easy to chop up after the 2010 Census as Delahunt’s, so he probably hangs on for one more term.

Next in age is Barney Frank, who will turn 70 next month. Have you seen all these grumpy TV interviews he’s been giving lately? It’s just not as much fun anymore never knowing when someone is going to play your sound bite from 2008 about how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in great shape going forward. . . .

Then there’s Easy Ed Markey. His district makes no sense, and at the age of 63, neither does he. But it would be cruel to deinstitutionalize him after 34 years in the halfway House of Representatives.

Having said all that, I still think Delahunt quits. I heard it’s going to be 81 at Hedonism II today.

wv-"ablabi" = they can't convict you of the crime if you can prove you were doing crunches at the time -- introducing "The Ablabi" (as seen on TV)

Mr. Buddwing, have you ever worked a pump shotgun? One round fired by accident, maybe. Two or more, no way. I can't even begin to imagine working the slide "by accident."

I suppose, it being Bah-stun and all, that there is a possibility that it was an autoloader so that she didn't have to work a slide. The article did say "pump," I'm allowing for a reporter who is ignorant of firearms. (Are there any other kind?)

Another point to ponder. It was a 12 ga. Unless she had it on her shoulder, after pulling the trigger the first time it should have kicked itself out of her hands with the recoil.

Mr. Buddwing, have you ever worked a pump shotgun? One round fired by accident, maybe. Two or more, no way. I can't even begin to imagine working the slide "by accident."

In answer to your question: No. I've never fired a real gun in my life. I was merely pointing out the problem with the professor's heading for this post: "Amy Bishop killed her brother back in 1986... with 3 blasts from a shotgun." That's not what the linked article from the NYT said.

First of all, there's no "accidentally" pulling a trigger. But she shot her brother only once, according to the Globe.

Apparently the NYT journalist was not a science/engineering major. The characteristics he noted are all too typical:

Some students also had problems with Ms. Bishop’s teaching style, saying she simply read from the book in class but then tested them on material that she had not covered.

Ms. Bishop was “very socially awkward with students” and never made eye contact during personal conversations, Ms. Phillips said. “We all had kind of a problem with her. She never really taught much. She just read straight from the book.”

The sort of person who gets science PhDs is not the sort you want to have a beer with. A social nerd is someone who sits down and stares at someone else's shoes.

The material covered in a course should be in the syllabus. I suspect those who complained that she tested them on material she didn't cover because they quit going to class once they decided all she did was read from the book. Get hold of old tests, work all the problems in the text, and you'd probably do fine on the exam. Slackers typically don't.

There doesn't seem to be much intersection between justice and Massachusetts in recent reports. The Amiraults were/are apparently jailed and humiliated for nothing. The assistant DA who reviewed the case and just failed being elected Senator, supported by the Democratic president, maintained the Amiraults' convictions and later let a relative of an influential union leader sexually assault a baby with a curling iron w/o being charged. Now some other politically connected woman who has murdered apparently again earlier escaped even a criminal charge in MA. Makes it look like 'progressives' are broadcasting over Radio Orwell.

FLS: Guns can go off without pulling the trigger. A dropped shotgun or one subjected to a bump can discharge. They aren't supposed to, but they can and do. On double barrel shotguns it is not uncommon for the second barrel to go off as a result of the kick of the first. I have a side by side that had that unfortunate problem before I had it repaired.

As someone pointed out correctly it is completely impossible for a pump shotgun to go off accidentally more than once. Impossible.

I was 14, and living in Braintree when she shot her brother. I don't remember hearing a thing about this story. I'm asking some of my friend from that time about it, and they don't remember it either.

She was a smart girl and with a last name like Bishop, I'd suspect her parents may be Catholic. She could have gone to Archbishop Williams Catholic High School, which is why I've never heard of the incident.

Massachusetts's suburbs have a bit of the deer and duck hunting culture. In Braintree high school, around '87 and '88, I was on the rifle team. Some of the kids used to bring their rifles to school on Fridays because the team would head straight to the Rod and Gun club right after classes let out. The whole "fear the gun" thing didn't really foment until after Reagan was shot and the Brady Campaign drew strong support in Boston and Cambridge.

The fact that Amy Bishop killed her brother and wasn't charged isn't out of the ordinary. Anymore than driving your car into the water and leaving some young girl to drown and never being held accountable. That's the way it's done in Massachusettes.

I grew up in Weymouth, next door to Braintree in the 1960s. Xmas is right. The South Shore suburbs are not like Cambridge and Wellesly. Being a Democrat in that area is all about jobs, first, last, and foremost. That's why it was so easy for Scott Brown, also from Norfolk County, but not actually the South Shore, to pick off Martha Coakley. Led so long by Kennedys and a kind of inertial hubris, Massachusetts Democrats lost touch with their roots.

The kind of "police protection" offered to a family like the Bishops was certainly pretty common on the South Shore in my day. It certainly helped that Mrs. Bishop was on the Town's personnel board and probably took part in Chief Polio's evaluations. Too bad that mom was not on the tenure committee at 'bama.

I think we need to concentrate more on condolences to the affected families.

And what of Amy Bishop's own family? I suspect that a woman who could do this to coworkers and a brother wouldn't be above abusing her own family too. Her husband. Her four kids. Are they in deep, deep grief, or relieved that it wasn't them?

Amy isn't a tragedy. What she did to her victims is a tragedy. We aren't politicizing it, we're discussing the political fallout of political things that were done for her in the past.

On February 13th, Delahunt cleared the way for retiring by openly mulling if he was going to run in 2012. I think he saw the trouble coming on the day of the shooting.

That said, every nut that goes on a shooting spree, or who just has an higher than normal number of weapons, gets tagged as a Right Wing or Religious extremists. When, really, they're just a nut with a gun. So, Socialist Miss Bishop has just giving the Righties and Fundies their "See it's not just our side!" moment.

Sometimes crazy people get their hands on guns (or cars, or knives, or scissors, or golf clubs, or airplanes) and do crazy things. Sometimes very smart people are also very crazy people. Sometimes major warning signs get swept under the rug by politically connected parents. But nearly always, reporters like to throw in Christian and right-wing affiliations, just to show how "really crazy" someone is.

When I first heard of this story (from Madison Man, in a comment on an earlier thread), I'd assumed that she'd accidentally shot her brother, and that this might have damaged her psychologically, later contributing to the Alabama murder spree.

But three shots from a pump 12 complicates that little theory.

I suppose there are two ways that it still could have been accidental:

1) She accidentally shot him with the first round, then fired off two into the walls/ceiling out of anger with herself, or with the person telling her how to unload it.

2) There are two ways to unload a pump: If it has a shell release button on the underside of the ejection port, then you can depress this button and the shells will come out of the tubular magazine without chambering them. Then you just press the slide release button to eject the already-chambered round (if there is one) without firing it.

But if it doesn't have such a button, then every round in the tube has to first go through the chamber. I don't know if she had a Browning BPS or some old piece of shit Savage/Stevens, but chances are, she didn't have that button, and so she was cycling the rounds through while holding the slide release button down, and she was doing it quick (which tends to make it easier). Now, you'd think that the recoil and noise from an accidental discharge would be enough to interrupt the process....but maybe not, if she was really concentrating. The kick from a 12 gauge with birdshot isn't that bad when fired from the hip.

The kick from a 12 gauge with birdshot isn't that bad when fired from the hip.

But still significant and very noisy. The natural position to hold a shotgun to unload it by chambering the shell first is in a diagonal position across the chest with the barrel pointed up at about 45 degrees. Of couse, someone not familiar with shotguns might try a different position. The accidental three shots theory holds no water at all.

Wikipedia is unhelpful, saying only that an Amelia Bishop of Nova Scotia gave birth to three Nova Scotia politicians: Thomas, William, and Robert Dickson. Considering NS's Scottish heritage, I'd say that "Amelia Bishop" would be unlikely to be Catholic.

Depends on the sequence of rounds, especially given the scattering. If the first or second round proved the fatal shot, "accident" seems unlikely. But if it was the third and last round that proved fatal, there's a plausible defense.

According to the NRA's digest of state gun laws, no permit is needed to possess a handgun, only to carry it concealed as she did on that particular day.

For the sake of argument let us assume her only crime was carrying a concealed handgun -- perhaps someone saw it in her purse when she paid for her morning latte. There is an exception for carrying in one's home, on one's land, or in one's fixed place of business. That last might let Bishop argue that the university was her "fixed place of business," but generally you have to own or control the property.

But if it was the third and last round that proved fatal, there's a plausible defense.

According to the accounts, it was the second shot. In any case, considering is was a pump shotgun, I find it hard to believe. For it to be the first round, you have to chamber a round, usually by holding down a "button" of sorts and pumping the gun, the safety must be off and then the gun fire accidentally some how.

You can chamber the second or third round without holding down the button but still must work the pump action, safety be off and, again, accidentally discharge. Of all the types of shotguns, single shot, double barrel, pump and semi-automatic, I feel the pump would be the least likely to accidentally discharge. Single barrel and double barrels have a shell already in the chamber when loaded. A semi-automatic, after the first round has been chambered, will automatically re-chamber a round each time shot. A pump actually has the most steps between loading and firing.

I was thinking less of the particular gun, and more of the situation. If, as you noted, the fatal shot represented the number two round of the reported three rounds, "accident" is more difficult to argue.

But certainly not impossible. Do we know, for example, if the victim was in the same room as the shooter; could she see him when she was firing the gun? Did she even know he was in the line of fire?

I retrospect, we assume the fix was in - but was it? Enough for the chief to risk his career, his retirement?

The latest incident is more clear cut, including premeditation. Enter; insanity. A normal person, a mother, doesn't jeopardize her family/kids by engaging in fatal acts of violence. Execution style.

DADvocate said: "The natural position to hold a shotgun to unload it by chambering the shell first is in a diagonal position across the chest with the barrel pointed up at about 45 degrees."

Well, when I had to unload a pump gun without a shell release button, I'd cycle the gun while holding it at just the right angle so that the shells would all land on a dry, clean area; or my brother would catch them. I'd pay some attention to the trajectory of the unfired shells, while, of course, making sure that there was nothing in the line of fire.

Again, I'm not saying that an accidental discharge of 3 rounds is likely, but it's not impossible. It would just require someone to have a firm grasp of the weapon and a remarkable tendency to just keep on making the same mistake over and over.

Montana Urban Legend springs to mind, for some reason.

Speaking of my brother: I've hunted and shot my whole life, and I've only been involved in one accidental discharge -- when my brother shot me. He was in his teens and working on a piece-of-shit Norinco Chinese SKS (a fixed-stock nondetachable magazine variant of the AK-47). He was having feeding issues, and cycling rounds through. He stripped the bolt back, assuming that the round had ejected, and attempted to dry-fire it at the television in the 10x12 bedroom we shared.

The 7.62x39 round isn't very powerful, but Jesus, it's loud.

The brass-jacketed bullet shattered when it hit the glass screen; most of the mass of the round went through the TV and through the wall and lodged in the doorjamb. The rest of it bounced off the TV and hit me. I dug a part of it out of my knee that had denim bonded to it, where it had passed through my blue jeans. Another piece went through my upper lip and knocked a tooth loose.

He was very upset about it, and needless to say he's been hyper-vigilant about firearms safety ever since. I can still remember him screaming "WHAT!!! WHAT!!!" while I laughed my ass off, with blood streaming from my lip.

via Instapundit: “Amy Bishop and her husband, James Anderson, were questioned after a package containing two bombs was sent to the Newton home of Dr. Paul Rosenberg, a professor and doctor at Boston’s Children’s Hospital.” - http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/ala_slay_suspec.html